it's a yearly gathering each july in california where human growth is where the rich and powerful from politics media and business gather leaked e-mails are to give an inside look at the secretive retreat that story coming up. and for years former congressman and presidential candidate ron paul argued the u.s. should return to the gold standard it appears one state is taking his advice we'll tell you about texas' plan to hoard gold. and he's pushing for a ban on some guns in the u.s. but new york mayor michael bloomberg has a long history of going out there so does trans fats and smokers so is he turning his mentor his office into a monarchy. it's

tuesday march twenty sixth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r t. but again today where the watch for house one of the most secretive meetings in the one of the world's most powerful rich and powerful people the bohemian grove retreat is held every summer and monorail california top government ad business leaders are among those that attend the men's only event it's been going on for decades but what actually happens there remains a mystery and that's because the two a gathering is completely closed to the media but now one infamous hacker is trying to shed some light on what goes on there the hacker group so far has handed over some e-mails to our team here's one of that. shows a new score executive andrew knight allegedly writing to former u.s. secretary of state colin powell he urges powell to make sure the u.k. prime minister tony blair comes to the bohemian grove he says the event should be quote a top priority for. these e-mails have yet to be confirmed in our t.

has reached out for verification and we've yet to hear back but these e-mails do open the door for some interesting questions why is bohemian grove a top priority what really happens there every year it is something the public should be concerned about to discuss i was joined earlier by elizabeth politics reporter at u.s. news and world report there's very little that's confirmed about what happens inside bohemian grove and part of that is that they're the people who run bohemian grove are so closed about what happens what they will say is that it's a gathering every year of influential people ranging from former presidents to c.e.o.'s oil. and that it's based around art and music and culture and it's among the redwood tree sounds like a good time but who can make this different from other early events that go on davos for example or some of these all their elite gatherings well it's actually very different because if you look at davos or aspen even though many of the events

are invitation only a lot of it is open to the public and the goal is sort of to you know better the world and have all these thought leaders coming together to share their ideas with the public and you can watch the things on you tube and all that will he mean grove is completely different you have no idea what goes on there you don't know who's attending every year you don't know what they talk about and bohemian grove even says that they are not trying to better the world they're not trying to gather people together to come up with ideas that will be world changing they just want it to be sort of a retreat i guess that's how it's to described as a retreat and some are going to say you know why not you know these people have the right to have their their private gatherings and private time away from the public eye sure i think the problem that some people have is that there's been a lot of speculation about what actually goes on there some people say druid worship goes on there because there's a lot of worshiping of the redwood tree there isn't it a giant ceremony with like

a forty foot our old. there have been gotten inside and just it's just seems like very bizarre rituals happening by people who have enormous influence in the world and so the idea that they gather to do this every year is sort of a little bit of. speaking of these people that do have enormous influence who do we know about who is on the guest list who goes to these events exactly so supposedly every republican president since the forty's i believe has been on the guest list where every single one has gone you know on church nixon when reagan went hoover went bill clinton has famously made fun of it is saying that it was naked republicans rubbing themselves against redwood tree. but nixon definitely on the watergate tape tapes he actually heard sort of making fun of it and saying that it's a gay event but we also know that major c.e.o.'s basically anyone who's influential in america and around the world has come to the right and invited so yeah it seems like of. all of the world's most very powerful the most the policy makers the

influence makers are there you don't really hear too much about it so why do you think it's not really a concern of the mass media or the general public i mean i think it's just that so little information has gotten out so there's nothing to really say and the people who have gotten information out are people that are sort of kept to the fringes so in four wars of famous conspiracy theorist site alex jones who went in there with a camera he actually was able to videotape the ceremony with the giant owl and i actually i talked to the spokes person of bohemian grove and he confirmed that the footage was real so so it's a legitimate you know thing that they really get inside but alex jones someone new and really takes seriously and so i think the mass media just really doesn't want to i think the question is yes yes the video is israel and authentic but some of the messages some of the things that he was saying it is what is in dispute. let me ask you we saw you during the presidential campaign we saw from the former republican presidential candidate mitt romney this forty seven percent. again about

and this was something that he thought he thought he was behind closed doors but in this modern day and age somebody was recording it and this came out and it's called a game changer and so do you think that these events you know they provide an opportunity just to speak candidly and show their true colors and say things that say things and do things that they may otherwise not do and i think that's why influential people have held on to this retreat as something that is for them to not even really do business i mean the slogan the bohemian grove is weaving spiders come not here and what that means is we're not going to do business here don't come here with your you know wheeling and dealing like this is a place to be able to say whatever you want and perhaps like the forty seven percent video i'm sure that people say things that are politically you know incorrect or inappropriate but they know that they can't because no one's watching them i guess the great dilemma is that a lot of the stuff is just kind of speculation because it's so secretive it's all remains a secret we don't really know for sure what does go on but appreciate you coming on

elizabeth i was a little bit flock politics reporter at u.s. news and world report. now to texas where apparently governor rick perry is thinking about hoarding gold according to the texas tribune the governor has teamed up with state representative giovanni company of the oni to drop the legislation that would create what would be called the texas billion depository look a prickly only told the tribune quote we don't want the certificates we want our gold and if you're in the state of texas you should be able to get your gold so with the backing ups of some texan lawmakers the governor wants to transfer the state's gold reserves from new york back to the lone star state and you've heard the argument for going gold before former congress republican congressman ron paul has been a very vocal supporter of returning to the gold standard paper money is a moral hazard encourages people to break a lot of risky investment mental investments and they overdo things they over him best. so good texas realistically switch over to the gold standard and what would

it mean for the state and the rest of the country to discuss i spoke earlier to wayne allen root the author of the book you see there the ultimate obama survival guide and i asked him what switching to the gold standard would do for the state of texas. well first of all the gulf interview great for the whole united states of america but politicians will just never allow it to happen it's a ron paul idea to rand paul i.v. it's wayne rooney idea and it's a governor rick perry idea and i fall into those exact themes of politicians i love those guys but they're never going to let it happen live because the gold standard limits the imagination of politicians who love big government who love big spending who love big entitlement who love big unions who love big taxes you can't spend money you don't have or print money you don't have when you have a gold standard so on a national basis i think it would be fantastic for the united states to go back on

the gold standard because all the problems of america have occurred since one thousand nine hundred ninety one when richard nixon took us off the gold standard that are all the debt of this country cumulated and all you have seen spending and the obscene salaries of government pensions that are bankrupting this country now to texas i mean texas liz does everything right my book the ultimate obama survival guide actually has a key chapter about the state of texas and how fantastic things are going there and they've got the best economy in america they've now moved to number two size wise a condo in america it's one of the twenty biggest economies in the world and they've created more jobs in the last ten years then all the other forty united states combined they do things right and they're right to be suspicious of who's keeping their goal the federal reserve in new york is it really there can they get it when they need it in a crisis that's what this new texas gold standards all about bringing the gold that we own in texas back to texas let us guard our own gold and take possession of her

own gold to show that we have stability in our state when a business moves here they want to go back to our stability texas can show them not only is the economy great but we've got gold to back it up and it's in our possession and we know it is now going to ask you in our critic. the gold standard is say that it limits economic growth because there's only so much gold as you said that you can't you can't print off more gold so that seems like a major downside to this system well you know what the only thing that limits economic growth turns out to be the federal reserve i'll give you one of the greatest stats of all time list the federal reserve was founded in one thousand thirteen and it's only goal was to protect the value of the dollar and since nine hundred thirteen on the day the fed was bound to the dollars looks ninety six percent of its value better stock that you but if you had a million dollars if you're thirteen and i talk about this in detail about what the

ultimate obama survival guide is you had a million dollars if you put it in the bank maybe you kept it in dollars today a leave worth forty thousand dollars because it's gone down ninety six percent value if you put the same million in gold and i see thirteen that same gold that all these experts of government bureaucrats and politicians state and try to tell you a terrible this it will be worth eighty seven billion dollars today so it's just you know the forty thousand or eighty seven million to leave your kids and grandkids i think gold turns out to be pretty darn good of politicians turned out to be pretty darn stupid here is sounds like a huge advocate for this gold for this gold standard i don't think you can make that as a secret i do want to ask i want to get to this because not too long ago we covered this petition that was going around it was going around several states but texas really took. gained a lot of popularity in the state of texas this petition to secede from the united states and create its own government so now texas switched over to the system they

would have their own currencies so i know this is talking like a longshot but if this were to happen a and the state of texas could that possibly make it more make it possible for texas to operate on its own. well i tell you what liz your real ball shot i doubt it's ever going to happen but if things get bad enough under obama in the next four years it becomes a little bit less of a long shot you never know how they actually back up that threat with actually doing something about it it will be a net loss for america's second biggest economy in the united states of america and in my book the ultimate obama survival guide i actually quote an expert about moving out of united states because taxes are so high the economy is collapsing and declining and that experts said you know why don't you really have to move out of united states you could just move to the greatest country in the united states it's called texas so i think there's a lot of people out there starting to feel like texas spoke getting this right so i know a couple texans myself and they're they're always really really proud texans and.

no exception every show you coming on the show we are at a time that was away now and root out there of the ultimate obama survival guide. an earthquake that struck mexico this morning the u.s. geological survey said a magnitude five point five earthquake hit the southwest of tape a nasty and alan the pacific coast of mexico less than ten minutes later a second quake hit with magnitude five point one well no damage was reported in mexico city or closer to that area but just yesterday are to correspondent ramon glendower told us what a huge earthquake earthquake could do to the west coast of the united states and he joins us now to talk about what mexico this morning hi there i'm on so we're going to tell us more about this earthquake that struck mexico today sure as you mentioned it was registered a magnitude of five point five on the earthquake it was about two hundred thirty

miles south southeast of mexico city so as we saw in some of the video that's coming online now early warning system there in mexico was able to alert people that some shaking was on its way video showed swain of bill dean's. thousands of people you back waiting out into the streets of mexico city it was centered on the pacific coast of mexico near the state of one haka but as you mentioned no injuries reported and no damage so far however this area very familiar with seismic activity remember in one thousand nine hundred five the eight point one magnitude quake which killed nearly ten thousand people and mexico sits on three tectonic plates so definitely very active when it comes to seismic activity there luckily as you said no deaths reported today we do know where my understanding is that the mexican earthquake warning response and it is quite effective so what about here in the u.s. from our own how would you gauge our preparedness that's right compared to mexico's

mexico's has been in place ever since one thousand nine hundred one in light of that deadly quake in one thousand nine hundred five they took so many lives and just decimated so many buildings in the mexico city area and so far it has been pretty effective in giving people in mexico city and in other resort places like in acapulco a pretty good head start as to when an earthquake is on its way and this is allowed first responders to clear certain intersections that might be dangerous for drivers it allows people leaving it or people working in these large office buildings to get to secure areas and it can shut down trains from going off the train or off the tracks excuse me so grand right now there the warning system in california is only in development stages so right now countries like mexico and japan and even turkey in romania are are further along in their warning systems in california and the rest of the united states i think that is are vulnerable to take for us to catch up

. sure well the big thing is always money here in california the early warning system would cost much more than it would in mexico and in mexico they have to have a lot fewer sensors because of this fault that causes earthquake today it's actually off the coast a lot of faults here in california are actually in when it or inland excuse me so we would have to have so many other sensors but we take a look at how other countries are prepared such as your pen which is already equipped with thousands of sensors i mean their system cost something like. five hundred million dollars excuse me it's projected that a system here in california would be eighty million dollars but right now there's no political appetite and at a time of fiscal crisis there's not really an appetite to spend that much money even though it could potentially save lives aveeno if they could vent investment clearly but as you said this is something that can save lives you said there is no political appetite i mean that was convened my next question is this something that

lawmakers that have taken notice of and are working on changing and upgrading this emergency system. right well if places like japan and mexico seismic activity happening all the time people see the damage that is happening there and there is this political will to keep the populace safe but here i mean the last major earthquake that we saw in california it was an earthquake in one thousand nine hundred four caused billions of dollars in damage and. this causes them it for a system to warn people would be eighty million dollars so when you tell people that an eighty million dollars system could potentially save lives and save billions of dollars in damage people are wondering why that money is being spent but as i mentioned when there's budget problems a lot of times these first responders get cut and when we don't see earthquakes causing deaths in damage on a daily basis they're just really isn't that appetite to spend money and create this safeguard thanks for that update that was our to correspondent among the lindo

. the mayor bloomberg keeps making his way into the media spotlight first he banned smoking in new york city public parks then he tried to ban large sugary drinks now he's focused on passing gun control and he's spending his own money to do it he reportedly plans to spend twelve million dollars on ads aimed at putting pressure on u.s. citizens to pass gun control measures the move has some asking is he taking it too far i do not think we should ban most things i do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom and that is for example if you're drinking we should let you drive because you'll kill somebody else if you. are carrying a gun we should let you want an airplane. are to correspond on a saucy a turk and joins us now to discuss the mayor's power and how people over there in your city feel about it. so i know you've covered of bloomberg for the last twelve

years analysis say is taking it to far even threatening threatening democracy how do you see it. well there's a you know i mean threatening democracy is really a strong term to use but i really think it depends largely on the kinds of policies specifically we talk about i mean if it's things that have been largely popularized and criticised very extensively in the media such as you know his recent attempts to bad large soda drinks his crackdown on smoke lee smoking in public parks his you know attempts to control sole portions and restaurants his recent attempts to try to ban be a bit of having cigarettes be put on display at convenience stores these really seem to be all kind of commonsense things and even though people might like their big sugary drinks or might like smoking in public mostly people would agree that these are all good things for the city of new york but then we can also talk about policies that have been a lot more controversial not necessarily policies but in actions if we look at for example the increased police brutality if we look at the major crackdown on the

occupy wall street movement which many people saw as a very big important step in democratic rights for people in this country if we look at increased homelessness the coalition for the homeless says right now in the city of fifty thousand people sleep at homeless shelters every night twenty one thousand people that's an increase of twenty two percent over the last two years these issues not being tackled you know bloomberg extending his own term to three terms now being in office for twelve years his relationship with wall street i mean the risk list is long and it depends on what which one of these we really look at to be able to assess whether or not certain steps and actions and positions were democratic enough or not now how would you gauge the reaction of the new yorkers there on the ground how are they reacting to bloom birds differ and different crusades to monitor vices we've seen cigarettes was the last thing we saw. well i mean lives with the cigarettes in the sort of the cigarettes ban has been around for a while and smokers have really given up on trying to you know get used to that

everybody here in new york knows that you know you don't smoke in public parks and that's that's not really an issue for most people i would i would assume any more with the soda drinks this was a recent battle here it was quite amusing of course bloomberg tried to put a ban on the drinks larger than sixteen ounces and turns out a lot of people on the streets that we spoke to here were a lot more outraged about this proposition now take a look at take a listen to what some people told us if you're just mr mayor i'm sorry to tell you you do not have the right to dictate what people eat there's a constitution i'm pretty sure it's unconstitutional you know there are constitutional rights matter all that much anyway well there you have it liz i mean people were not really happy with that bad but of course we know about that never really happened it was cracked down by the courts so bloomberg did not win without one all right i want to get to this. bloomberg is doing now in terms of gun control because he has announced that he is going to spend twelve million dollars to influence public opinion on gun control before the

upcoming midterm elections in two thousand and fourteen so. this clearly it's out outside of new york so so i mean what does this say about his power he's taken it now beyond the borders of new york city this power is more far reaching. well listen you know good a good question because indeed to has indeed started an advertising t.v. advertising campaign in. over twelve million dollars of his own money his own personal cache to tackle the issue of gun control to fight for gun control in a dozen different states and how this is kind of causing some controversy because people are saying well the question is is he going to be able to really influence any of this gun control legislation because this is in fact not really his business but because he has this major money you know most people are saying to him twelve billion dollars is really nothing is lunch they're saying that he may not necessarily be able to influence any of this because people in other states see him

as this you know billionaire mayor who is very involved in things like salts and soda and smoke banning smokes but we have to keep in mind that does have a history of being able to kick out of recess politicians that he was unhappy with and certainly money played a quote significant role there the man puts his money where his mouth is i think we can say that much about him thanks honestly that was our to correspondent honest. however the eye catching the bus isn't in style has been to arlington virginia the county just south of washington d.c. just completed construction of a state of the art bus stop with a price tag of one million dollars are the corresponding margaret how well once the bus stops for has its report. from here is the new bus stop in arlington virginia would you be surprised to find out that it cost nearly one million dollars to build from the l.c.d.

screen offering the best times to homeless proof benches and glass hanging over one thing's for sure this county spared no expense so here at the local bus stop in arlington where the county essentially put in over a million dollars worth of goods money into building this bus stop. i don't think is worth the million dollars and you know it's not going to keep us from the wind the wind the rain the snow or anything and it is blowing out here and i'm actually code so i don't see it this expensive best up is coming at a time when government at every level is tightening their purse strings the sequester ation slash two hundred million in programs and services to taxpayers throughout the u.s. so it seems some people here in arlington apparently didn't get the message the million dollar project was eighty percent funded by the state and federal government the county has been defending its investment claiming that new retail and apartment buildings are springing up all the time and sixteen thousand people take these buses each day the spinning won't end with this one bus stop the county does have plans to put in twenty three just like it in the next few years the next

construction is scheduled to begin in the next couple of months we do have a lot of people that off under you know under the pay scale then you know need some housing in and they could have but that there is that i want to bust up with the old ones work better than this one does. our artsy. speaking of splurging on non-critical items it looks like a luxury unless americans are able to do this after an article out from pulitzer prize winning journalist david cay johnson that puts the growing wealth divide in the u.s. in perspective moshav income growth for the bottom ninety percent fifty nine dollars is what it totaled up for the top ten percent over one hundred sixteen thousand dollars so what do these figures say about the u.s. economy earlier i was joined by kyle harrington the founder of parents in council to discuss further. well i mean you know liz this just really ties into economic

policy it ties into capitalism versus maybe socialism in terms of how people make their money who makes the most money and you know what's what's interesting here is you know when barack obama's administration first ran for office i was interested to see if in fact some of his policies would create more you know redistribution of wealth and have folks on the bottom core tile of income start to rise and things equal out a little bit better obviously these numbers demonstrate that those policies in fact don't seem to be going well working in the right direction for the bottom core tiles so what is there to do i think it goes back to a host of things policy decisions whether it be taxes the belief that there let's face it liz i mean you know we we live in a country here where there isn't mean you you work hard you get more educated and

hopefully strive harder you make more money i mean that's that's the way it works and if you don't work as hard maybe you don't make as much money but what needs to happen in my opinion ok is that it needs to start in the household the folks need to focus on education for one getting their children more interested in education not allowing them to not graduate high school for example if you look at that lower income cortile you'll notice that the percentages of people graduating high school there's been studies out that aren't very great i mean i think you need to not allow that to happen you need to somehow pursue. a college education because you know that a lot of those that did pursue a college education are now finding themselves unemployed so we're saying that that is either yeah i'm not suggesting it's a cure all but i think i think what you do is you put yourself in a better position for work. the more educated you are and i'm not suggesting stay in school forever or that it is a cure all because it is not

a cure all i mean i've have plenty of folks that i graduated princeton with that have great degrees and are unemployed currently so there needs to be a sense of resourcefulness there needs to be a sense of belief in the fact that one can achieve more and i think you know one one one interesting piece that i've read recently was making the financial aid system for people that are in that lower income core tile being able to achieve more financial aid for their college pursuits i think that system needs to be a little bit it needs to be more transparent and cleaned up a bit in an effort for those people to get financial aid to get that education because let's face it i mean education costs in the college world is is just it's just not cheap and it continues to increase so there's a whole host of things here i guess liz that are moving parts to make the lower income core tile you know earn more money and increase their income because the

facts are that one in six i think it's one in six people right now are living in poverty in the united states numbers don't look at appreciate you coming on the show that was found out of harrington capital management thank you. well the tennessee state capitol underwent renovations one sink in particular became the subject of controversy you are looking at it's a small portion of the sixteen million dollar renovation but this thing has captured the attention of lawmakers and nashville and that's because the senate clerk was approached by a number of state lawmakers fearful that the new sink was a muslim that you can see here an actual muslim but bath using traditional islam to wash feet before prayer that is the law makers thought the new sink was designed for these purposes the senate clerk had to confirm that the same cad nothing to do with islam it's a mop sink used to fill an empty buckets for the janitorial staff.